FAL. Men of all forts take a pride to gird at me: The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to vent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, like a fow, that hath overwhelmed all her litter but If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to fet me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whorefon mandrake,' thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now: but I

⚫one.

to gird at me:] i. e. to gile. So, in Lyly's Mother Bombie, 1594: "We maids are mad wenches; we gird them, and flout them," &c. STEEVENS.

mandrake,] Mandrake is a root fuppofed to have the shape of a man; it is now counterfeited with the root of briony. JOHNSON.

I was never manned with an agate till now:] That is, I never before had an agate for my man. JOHNSON.

Alluding to the little figures cut in agates, and other hard ftones, for feals; and therefore he fays, I will fet you neither in gold nor filver. The Oxford editor alters it to aglet, a tag to the points then in use, (a word, indeed, which our author uses to exprefs the fame thought): but aglets, though they were fometimes of gold or filver, were never set in those metals. WARBURTON.

It appears from a paffage in Beaumont and Fletcher's Coxcomb, that it was ufual for juftices of peace either to wear an agate in a ring, or as an appendage to their gold chain: " -Thou wilt fpit as formally, and fhow thy agate and hatched chain, as well as the best of them."

The fame allufion is employed on the fame occafion in The Ile of Gulls, 1606:

Grace, you Agate! haft not forgot that yet?"

The virtues of the agate were anciently supposed to protect the wearer from any misfortune. So, in Greene's Mamillia, 1593: "the man that hath the ftone agathes about him, is furely defenced against adversity." STEEVENS.

will fet you neither in gold nor filver, but in vile apparel, and fend you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your mafier, whofe chin is not yet fledged. I will fooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he fhall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to fay, his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amifs yet: he may keep it ftill as a face-royal,3 for a barber fhall never earn fixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever fince his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can affure him.-What faid mafter Dumbleton 4 about the fatin for my fhort cloak, and flops?

I believe an agate is ufed merely to exprefs any thing remarkably little, without any allufion to the figure cut upon it. So, in Much Ado about Nothing, Vol. VI. p. 82, n. 3:

"If low, an agate very vilely cut."- MALONE.

the juvenal,] This term, which has already occurred in A Midfummer-Night's Dream, and Love's Labour's Loft, is ufed in many places by Chaucer, and always fignifies a young man. STEEVENS.

3 he may keep it fill as a face-royal,] That is, a face exempt from the touch of vulgar hands. So, a ftag-royal is not to be hunted, a mine-royal is not to be dug. JOHNSON.

Old copies at a face-royal. Corrected by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE.

Perhaps this quibbling allufion is to the English real, rial, or royal. The poet feems to mean that a barber can no more earn fixpence by his face-royal, than by the face ftamped on the coin called a royal; the one requiring as little fhaving as the other. STEEVENS.

If nothing be taken out of a royal, it will remain a royal as it was. This appears to me to be Falffaff's conceit. A royal was a piece of coin of the value of ten fhillings. I cannot approve either of Johnson's explanation, or of that of Steevens. M. MASON. +--Dumbleton-] The folio has-Dombledon; the quarto

PAGE. He faid, fir, you should procure him better affurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.

FAL. Let him be damned like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter! 5-A whorefon Achitophel ! a rafcally yea-forfooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then ftand upon fecurity!-The whorefon smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high fhoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honeft taking up, then they must ftand upon-security. I had

Dommelton. This name feems to have been a made one, and defigned to afford fome apparent meaning. The author might have written-Double-done, (or, as Mr. M. Mafon obferves, Double-down,) from his making the fame charge twice in his books, or charging twice as much for a commodity as it is worth.

I have lately, however, obferved that Dumbleton is the name of a town in Glocefterfhire. The reading of the folio may therefore be the true one. STEEVENS.

The reading of the quarto (the original copy) appears to be only a mif-fpelling of Dumbleton. MALONE.

s Let him be damned like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter!] An allufion to the fate of the rich man, who had fared fumptuously every day, when he requested a drop of water to cool his tongue, being tormented with the flames. HENLEY.

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to bear-in hand,] is, to keep in expectation.

So, in Macbeth:

JOHNSON.

How you were borne in hand, how crofs'd."
STEEVENS.

- if a man is thorough with them in honeft taking up,] That is, if a man by taking up goods is in their debt. To be thorough feems to be the fame with the prefent phrase,—to be in with a tradefman. JOHNSON.

So, in Ben Jonfon's Every Man out of his Humour :

"I will take up, and bring myself into credit."

So again, in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607:

as lief they would put ratfbane in my mouth, as offer to ftop it with fecurity. I looked he fhould have fent me two and twenty yards of fatin, as I am a true knight, and he fends me fecurity. Well, he may fleep in fecurity; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightnefs of his wife fhines through it and yet cannot he fee, though he have his own lantern to light him.9-Where's Bardolph ?

PAGE. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse.

They will take up, I warrant you, where they may be trufted." Again, in the fame piece: "Sattin gowns must be taken up." Again, in Love Reftored, one of Ben Jonfon's maiques: "A pretty fine speech was taken up o' the poet too, which if he never be paid for now, 'tis no matter." STEEVENS.

the horn of abundance,] So, in Pafquil's Night-Cap, 1612, p. 43:

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"But chiefly citizens, upon whose crowne
"Fortune her bleffings most did tumble downe;
"And in whose eares (as all the world doth know)
"The horne of great aboundance ftill doth blow."
STEEVENS.

the lightness of his wife fhines through it: and yet cannot he fee, though he have his own lantern to light him.] This joke feems evidently to have been taken from that of Plautus: "Quò ambulas tu, qui Vulcanum in cornu conclufum geris?" Amph. A&t I. fc. i. and much improved. We need not doubt that a joke was here intended by Plautus; for the proverbial term of horns for cuckoldom, is very ancient, as appears by Artemidorus, who fays: "IFоεITETY AUT O'T YOÝ OCU Προειπεῖν αὐτῶ ὅτι ἡ γυνή σου πορνεύσει, καὶ τὸ λεγόμενον, κέρατα αυτῷ ποιήσει, κι ὄντως ἀπέβη. "Overpor." Lib. II. cap. 12. And he copied from thofe before him. WARBURTON.

The fame thought occurs in The Two Maids of Moreclacke, 1609:

"Shine through the horn, as candles in the eve,
To light out others." STEEVENS,

FAL. I bought him in Paul's,' and he'll buy me a horfe in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the ftews, I were manned, horfed, and wived.

1 I bought him in Paul's,] At that time the refort of idle people, cheats, and knights of the poft. WARBURTON.

So, in Fearful and lamentable Effects of Two dangerous Comets, &c. no date; by Nashe, in ridicule of Gabriel Harvey: "Paule's church is in wonderfull perill thys yeare without the help of our confcionable brethren, for that day it hath not eyther broker, maifterlefs ferving-man, or pennileffe companion, in the middle of it, the ufurers of London have fworne to bestow a newe steeple upon it."

In an old Collection of Proverbs, I find the following:

"Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade."

See alfo Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 631.' In a pamphlet by Dr. Lodge, called Wit's Miferie, and the World's Madneffe, 1596, the devil is described thus:

"In Powls hee walketh like a gallant courtier, where if he meet fome rich chuffes worth the gulling, at every word he fpeaketh, he maketh a mouse an elephant, and telleth them of wonders, done in Spaine by his ancettors," &c. &c.

I fhould not have troubled the reader with this quotation, but that it in fome measure familiarizes the character of Piftol, which (from other paffages in the fame pamphlet) appears to have been no uncommon one in the time of Shakspeare. Dr. Lodge concludes his description thus: "His courage is boafting, his learning ignorance, his ability weakness, and his end beggary." Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

- get thee a gray cloak and hat,

"And walk in Paul's among thy cashier'd mates,

"As melancholy as the beft.

I learn from a paffage in Greene's Difputation between a He Coneycatcher and a She Coneycatcher, 1592, that St. Paul's was a privileged place, fo that no debtor could be arrested within its precincts. STEEVENS.

In The Choice of Change, 1598, 4to. it is faid, "a man muft not make choyce of three thinges in three places. Of a wife in Westminster; of a fervant in Paule's; of a horfe in Smithfield; leaft he chufe a queane, a knave, or a jade." See alfo Moryfon's Itinerary, Part III. p. 53, 1617. REED.

"It was the fashion of thofe times," [the times of King